What makes you think that the Arab-Israelis want equal rights to Jewish Israelis in a Jewish State? I ask this question because there are more than a few indications that for some Arab-Israelis it is not a question of equal rights but of objection in principle to the existence of a Jewish state. No matter how equal are their rights, they would still object to the Jews having an independent national existence.

' In addition we Jews have been arguing about our own self-identity for the past couple of thousand years and though there is more than a little disagreement, we don't consider ourselves a race. That you and a good many Arab propagandists do consider Jews a race may be an indication of ignorance, racism or most probably poor salemanship through false advertising.'

Habesor I claim ignorance.

You say we don't consider ourselves a race' yet you claim a 'Jewish state'.

NahumS, if Arab Israelis had equal rights to Jews, and equal access and success with social and political institutions, Jews wouldn't be concerned about our numbers overtaking theirs because our equality would work in favor of us all. However, most Israelis realize that we don't have equal rights, even if they don't ever voice it; that's why they question our loyalty and worry that one day we'll find our John Brown in Israel.

You wouldn't have liked John Brown, but that's beside the point (I know: he was a relative, lol!)

The alleged lack of 'equal rights' has got nothing to do with any discussion of 'fears of Arabs/ Muslims taking over': there is very little I've seen in Israeli law which seems to be aimed at limiting rights of non-Jews (except for the 'right' to proselytize, pimping one's religion door-to-door like a vacuum cleaner.....)

The POINT is all those years of declarations from various groups purporting to represent the Israeli Arabs' views, all those declarations of 'we will bury you by our wombs' or some such.

If Arab 'spokespeople' hadn't made and continued to make such repeated declarations that they and nobody else should and will control the State of Israel and make laws within it - then there'd be no problem.

Same as in the US: nobody really cares about the genetic make-up of whoever's in Congress, etc, CEO's, etc - if they were all Hispanic, I doubt anyone would really notice the difference. BUT when one loudmouthed group keeps referring to 'La Raza' and announcing plans to 'take over' the US starting with the Southwest - that's problematic. Not because anyone is prejudiced against Hispanics - but because this group o' thugs wants to interfere with our Constitution. (you can read some of the racist shit they spew on 'Voz de Azatlan')....`

This kind of demagoguery is not 'for' any group, but simply 'against all others' - and NO, that's not the way I was raised to understand Zionism. What the 'La Raza' types - of whatever actual 'race' - claim is 'Zionism', is simply the projection of their own 'racist' views.

Read Herzl, Moses Hess, Pinsker, or just about any of the Zionist ideologues, including Ben Gurion. For all of them the Jews are a people or a nation. The Jewish State is a national description and not a religious description. There are religious zionists who might see it differently but they are in the minority. Most of the Haredi Jews, including your friends in the Neturai Karta, reject the State of Israel because it is a national state and not a religious theocracy.

Dos, you have bought into the Arab propaganda, as spelled out in the Fatah Charter, that the Jews are only a religion and not a nation. There are definitely Jews who consider themselves only a religion and that is okay with me. But the Zionists who established the State of Israel saw the Jewish people as a people and a nation. So for them (us) there is nothing different between Israel as a Jewish state, Jordan as an Arab state, France as a French state, or the USA as an American state and so on.

Dos, Thirteen colonies made up of very different social, economic and historical backrgrounds began their Declaration of Independence with the following words.

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,.."

The emphasis is mine but the first thing the Declaration announced was the creation of a nation out of the disparate colonial population. Eighty-seven years later this was restated by another American president when he began with these words:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, ..."

Dos, my point was that it isn't up to you to determine how us Jews define ourselves, just as it isn't up to us to determine how the Palestinians choose to define themselves. But in all cases, unless we Jews define ourselves as a race (in the late 20th century meaning of that term) but continue to define ourselves as a nation, then the term Jewish State cannot be a racist designation, though I would argue that continuing to call it a racist designation, is racist behavior.

Habesor, no, I have not bought into Arab propaganday because I do know what it is. My responses are more of a question. The only way I know anything about Jewsh people is from the Bible. Actually if it was not for the Bible most people would not have heard about them. Jews and their religion are interlocked in it. Without the God who became known to Jewish prophets etc and without Jesus' descent, Jews might still be a scattered tribe, togather with many other tribes who became extinct.

It is through this that Jews have had mighty Christian support which contributed to current 'Israel'.

Here is a fine article from the Washington Post. It touches on several issues that are being discussed on this forum to include demography, Iran, military readiness, political stability, and economics. It's really well worth reading besides being totally appropriate for both this thread and this forum.

What I took from the article was Fareed damning Bibi with the faint praise of being a slick pol. He didn't attribute Israel's advantages to him, nor did he find much that he was responsible for achieving other than being a popular leader during high times.

Disclaimer: The opinions of this member are not primarily informed by western ethnocentric paradigms, stereotypes rooted in anti-Muslim/Islam hysteria, "Israel can do no wrong" intransigence, or the perceived need to protect the Judeo-Christian world from invading foreign religions and legal concepts. By expressing such views, no inherent attempt is being made to derail or hijack threads, but that may be the result. The result is not the responsibility of this member.

I wonder how that article would have been written had it been titled, "Under Abbas, the Palestinians Are Weaker Than Ever" and would have continued with a description of internal Palestinian politics and suggestions of what Abbas could do to secure Palestine's future?

Zakaria's article is one-sided, not in being pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli but in only looking at one side of the equation. For instance, the Palestinians have several times been offered a state of their own and have each time refused the offer. Abbas has already been offered a state but responded that the time was not ripe for such a solution to the conflict. If as Zakaria argues, Bibi's position of power within the Israeli political system should give him the ability to make a "bold" offer to the Palestinians, then (and this is the part of the dynamic Zakaria ignored) Abbas's position of weakness within the Palestinian political system will only cause him to reject, once again, an Israeli offer.

By the way, there are some facts that Zkaria got wrong. One of those was that it was not Natanyahu who rejected Kadima as a coalition partner after the last elections, it was Tzipi Livni who rejected the idea of joining the coalition.